According to Courthouse News Service, U.S. Federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman earlier this month dismissed the pre-suit indirect infringement claims since Cisco conceded that it is not seeking damages for those claims.

Freeman's order states that Cisco "failed to allege sufficient facts to meet its own 'bright line' test."

"At this stage, however, allegations summarizing Arista's puffery in sales and marketing materials is not enough," Freeman wrote.

Cisco said it expected Freeman’s ruling and that it does not affect the patent infringement case.

"Judge Freeman’s order giving us the opportunity to amend our complaint is exactly what we expected after last week’s hearing,” said Cisco Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mark Chandler, in a statement. “Arista is left in the strange position of arguing in court that their claims that the EOS+ product is ‘pioneering,’ were actually just ‘marketing puffery,’ as the judge put it. They introduced EOS+ even after they knew of our allegations that they had used our patented technologies, so there can be no doubt that their action was willful. Their motion against the willfulness allegation doesn’t rest of denial of infringement, but rather suggest that EOS+ is just a minor tweak to their earlier infringing product. Having owned up to that, maybe they will decide to step forward and admit their patent infringement."

Arista said it would “respect the legal system and not comment on interim matters.”

This story, "Cisco indirect infringement case against Arista dismissed" was originally published by
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Jim Duffy has been covering technology for over 28 years, 23 at Network World. He covers enterprise networking infrastructure, including routers and switches. He also writes The Cisco Connection blog and can be reached on Twitter @Jim_Duffy and at jduffy@nww.com.